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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2012-02-23, Page 1CitizenTh e $1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, February 23, 2012 Volume 28 No. 8 CURLING - Pg. 19Local advances tocurling’s next level WEATHER - Pg. 20Warm winter not ablessing to someSPORTS- Pg. 8Ironmen facing eliminationagainst WalkertonPublications Mail Agreement No. 40050141 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, ON N0G 1H0INSIDE THIS WEEK: Sister pays tribute to Bokhout in ‘Globe and Mail’ Drummond Report could affect Raceway Strapping them on Two-year-old Brianna gets her skates on, with a little help from her mom Kara McNichol, at the Blyth and District Community Centre on Monday’s Family Day holiday. The free public skate was held as part of North Huron’s Family Fun-apalooza Winter Luge-athon. Events were held throughout the Township of North Huron at its three community centres. Huron East also held several Family Day activities throughout the municipality, including Brussels. (Jim Brown photo) After the initial shock of her brother’s death and the passing of the Christmas season, Jessica Bokhout sat down to write what she hoped would “complete the picture” of her brother John. Jessica has been a great fan of The Globe and Mail for years, she says, and she has especially admired the newspaper’s ‘Lives Lived’ section. Soon after John’s death in November, she knew she wanted to honour him through a medium she greatly admired. The time elapsed between John’s Nov. 15 death and her piece being published in The Globe and Mail on Feb. 14 gave her a chance to speak to others about her brother, hearing stories she may not otherwise have heard. “I thought this would really be a nice way to share John,” Jessica said in an interview with The Citizen. “We had so many other stories shared with us and so many great things came out of that.” Jessica said that she spoke with many of John’s friends and other family members who shared their stories about John and every story provided a new view on John that perhaps she didn’t have before. After hearing all of these stories, paired with her own experiences with her brother and their family, once Jessica began to write, she realized it would be a difficult process. The section calls for a 500-word limit on submitted pieces and Jessica’s first draft, she says, was two pages long. “It was a great process to sit down and write about John,” Jessica said. “I had to try to get across what I wanted people to know about John, what was special about him.” Jessica eventually submitted a piece that was approximately 500 words long, but it faced a further edit before it saw the newspaper last week. Jessica, however, was happy with how the piece turned out. “I was very pleased with it, given the amount of space I had to work with,” she said. “I think it gives a good sense of John and all the lovely bits about him.” There has been an outpouring of comments from friends and family members, Jessica says, who feel that the piece has given them a chance to get in touch with all new emotions stemming from John’s untimely death. “Our family has all read it and I’ve received a lot of lovely words back,” Jessica said. It is, however, John’s friends who have surprised Jessica since the piece was published. “I’ve heard from a lot of John’s friends, friends he had known his whole life,” Jessica said, “and you don’t often see 22-year-old guys opening up about their emotions.” From John’s friends, Jessica says she has heard that the remembrance has summoned memories of playing hockey at the Bokhouts’ home and playing ministick hockey in the family’s basement, among other things. While the piece has left a On Wednesday, Feb. 15 Ontarians were given a view of their financial future by economist Don Drummond that will involve a lot of cuts. Drummond’s 668-page, two volume report is filled with 362 cost- cutting suggestions broken down by department and spending habits and includes some fairly stark numbers. If the province approves Drummond’s report, education will be capped tightly, with primary and secondary funding being increased by a maximum of one per cent per year and universities only being allowed to increase 1.5 per cent per year. Healthcare and social services are also being kept to maximum increases of 2.5 and 0.5 per cent increase per annum. The entire goal of the report is to see the province try and eliminate the deficit by 2017-18, something that would not have happened if spending continued the way it was at the provincial level according to Drummond. His figures state that the deficit will increase to over $30 billion by that time if his changes are not implemented. Every single recommendation is being considered by the provincial government according to Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan. He stated that everything save a suggestion to scrap full-day kindergarten was “in the mix”. Unfortunately those kinds of decision undermine the intent of the report according to Drummond. “This is not a smorgasbord from which the government can choose only the tastiest morsels and ignore the less palatable,” he said. One of the recommendations has to do with a profit-sharing system the Government of Ontario has had with organizations like the Clinton Raceway since 1999: the time of Premier Mike Harris. Duncan, who mistakenly referred to the system as a subsidy, stated the agreement would need to be reconsidered and possibly cancelled prior to the report being released. Currently slots like the Clinton Raceway in Central Huron are run with profits being split between the Province of Ontario (75 per cent), a local raceway (20 per cent) and the host municipality (five per cent). The document makes reference to ending that business arrangement but doesn’t elaborate how, leaving people like Clinton Raceway Chair Morag Watt with a lot of questions about the plan. “It’s unclear what the result of that would be,” Watt said. “Certainly it would mean less money going into the local economy, but it isn’t like we can be cut out; we own the building.” Watt is referring to the fact that, when this deal was originally penned with facilities like the Clinton Raceway, the provincial government provided no capital in terms of the building. The Raceway board put forward the nearly $3 million to have the building erected and the government got involved after that. “The government made no capital investment at all,” she said. “At the time we didn’t know if it would An inquest into the death of Huron OPP officer and Wingham resident Vu Pham will begin in London in March. The provincial government made the announcement on Friday. The inquest will begin on March 26 at the Best Western Stoneridge Inn. It is expected to last 13 days, during which, approximately 30 witnesses will speak. Following the inquest, the jury may make recommendations that will attempt to prevent similar deaths. Pham, a 15-year veteran of the police force, was 37 years old at the time of his death. Pham pulled over a pickup truck being driven by 70- year-old Fred Preston on March 8, 2010. Preston fatally shot Pham in the head before being shot six times by Pham’s partner Del Mercey. Preston died three days later in a London hospital. Pham left behind his wife Heather and three children. By Denny Scott The Citizen Continued on page 6 By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen Pham inquest coming Continued on page 10